Having pages show in sidebar but not top menu

Hi all.

I am currently quoting for a website and wordpress seems hot favourite again.

What I would like is to be able to have the pages widget in my sidebar, displaying ALL my pages… but for the top menu to only show 2 or 3. Is this possible? I see this plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exclude-pages/) but it implies that the tick box would remove the page from ALL menus, which I don’t think is what I need.

Also – is there a way that my sidebar page widget can show only certain subpages, dependant upon which top level page I am on? For example – if I am on the top level page “Food”, I’d like the subpages “starters”, “mains”, “desserts” to also show… But not subpages of “Venues” such as “venue 1”, “venue 2”, “venue 3” etc. I would only want the “Venues” subpages to show if I am on that toplevel “Venues” page itself. Can anyone tell me if this is possible too?

I have not yet built the site, as it is only in a quote stage… so i cann’t post a link to show anyone – but I will be using Artisteer for the theme, if that helps anyone answer.

Please be gentle with me, as this little lady is very confident with wordpress and artisteer… bu not with coding as such (only the basics for me).

Thanks!

E x